


Silverbacked Mirrors

by sunshinekat



Category: The Strain (TV)
Genre: M/M, Otp for life, non-cannocial affair with Leonardo Da Vinci, weird worm kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 00:46:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13446933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinekat/pseuds/sunshinekat
Summary: Ephraim is a man of science, but while under the influence of alcohol, he is quite different.





	Silverbacked Mirrors

After a brutal battle Quinlan had been injured, a knife wielding muncher had gotten behind him, left a long, bleeding gash across his right shoulder. There were some accompanying cuts along Quinlan’s throat and collarbone. Or what might be a collarbone. Ephraim didn’t want to think about it too much. The gladiator however, seemed unmoved by the whole thing. As if a wound like this, deep enough to kill a normal human; was simply a minor inconvenience.

He hated it, and yet was fascinated by it. The whole concept of Quinlan was exciting scientifically, but the anger, the misery that haunted Ephraim’s every moment hindered his scientific side from flourishing, from doing what he really wanted to do.

Mr. Quinlan, would probably not care about the questions that filled Ephraim’s head. For something like him to exist, half-human, turned into this creature while in his mother’s womb. Incredible. Impossible, and yet here he was.

“I see that you have questions, Dr. Goodweather. Ask.”

“Your half-human,-“ Can I have a blood sample? Can I give you a physical? An X-ray? Full body scan? Christ what did his circulatory system look like!? Did he have a reproductive system or was he like the rest of them?

All these questions, others may have found intrusive. Mr. Quinlan, over one thousand years old, would probably find them amusing.

So Ephraim asked, and Mr. Quinlan scoffed, he turned to where Eph had continued to stitch his wound and tilted his chin up with one clawed finger, looking deep into his eyes with his pale, unnatural gaze.

“Leonardo Da Vinci asked me very similar questions.”

Eph moved his face from Quinlan’s touch, “Right, don’t try to flatter me. Just answer the question.”

Mr. Quinlan turned away staring at nothing and he let Ephraim finish his stitching, not a sound, not a breath.

Only when the final stitch was finished and Ephraim was putting away his surgical instruments did Quinlan finally speak.

“You may look at his notes if you wish to know more about my physiology.”

Eph glanced at him in shock, and then calmed himself down, “Notes…like…actual…” he looked away from the beast to calm himself. He wasn’t a big history buff but the idea of holding something that Leonardo Da Vinci wrote by hand was insane. Mr. Quinlan had that small smirk on his face when he looked back, “Do you want to read them Mr. Goodweather?”

Eph almost said no, just to spite him, but his curiosity was too great and so he accepted.

The book was old, wrapped in tight leather binding, but it was in fantastic condition, Quinlan had taken care of it. Even after all these years.

When he opened it he saw Leonardo Da Vinci’s script, notes on seeing a pale man walking the streets of Venice in the night. Eph wasn’t interested in the encounters that Leonardo reported, instead he was more interested in the sketches, the description of Mr. Quinlan that he wasn’t allowed to see. When he saw them his fascination grew. The parts of Quinlan that were human were there, reproductive organs and all, the cloaca located just below his tailbone, as if the plague had arranged itself around Quinlan’s human physiology.

He’d been reading for about two hours when the scientific investigation being conducted on Quinlan suddenly ceased. From a page filled with the description of his claws, of the white he produced that could heal the sick, the following page was filled with sketches of his face. Of his high cheek bones, of his sharp teeth, accented by his sculpted lips. The shape of his eyes, his pointed ears, the veins and scars along his skull and neck.

Eph thought it was a bit strange, but then he turned to the other pages, more sketches, the shape of Quinlan’s wide shoulders, the curve of his spine.

And unexpectedly, a full body drawing of Quinlan, Mr Quinlan, Mr. End Of The World Serious, Mr. I’m going to die when I kill my father Quinlan sitting on what looked like a balcony rail, in the nude, making the one expression they all thought impossible. He was smiling.

That face brought back feelings, old feelings, meeting Nora for the first time feelings, a deeply rooted fondness that he had thought long dead.

And looking at that face, at Mr. Quinlan, smiling, it was impossible not to…admire him. But Eph closed the journal, obviously this was something personal for Quinlan, and his relationship with Leonardo Da Vinci. He’d gotten what he wanted, even if it wasn’t the same as performing his own labs, it would have to do.

He closed it up and found Quinlan to return the journal. The half-breed was standing by his bar, under the yellow light looking at the countless, expensive liquor in stock, yet his glass sat by his hand, empty.

Ephraim opened his mouth to speak, but he had no words, all he could think about were those sketches. Countless drawings of what Quinlan looked like under that sweater. He found himself short of breath, and laughed softly at himself.

Quinlan turned, and glanced at him, then the book, “Ah, I see you’ve come to return my book.”

“Yeah, it was…informative.”

He needed a drink to deal with this sudden…change. He went to the bar and put the book on the glass surface, he went around and grabbed something, anything. He grabbed a glass and poured. When he looked at Quinlan he was holding the book in his clawed hands, gently, as if it were some precious thing. Holy shit.

He looked…nostalgic, as if remembering a treasured pet.

It was sickening; obviously the man had been in love with him. Had he not seen it? Had he not looked at those sketches himself? Were there only silver-backed mirrors in those days that he had no idea how beautiful he was?

There was no doubt that when Leonardo Da Vinci died, he was thinking of one man and one man only.

But it was seemingly obvious that Quinlan had no idea. He was fond surely, but he didn’t…understand the depth of affection. Not the way that it was depicted in each stroke of charcoal to parchment in that journal. Not in how lovingly he’d been described.

Eph laughed bitterly, astounded at Quinlan’s level of obliviousness, “You know, they used to write books about handsome vampires.”

Quinlan raised his brows at him, and then glanced away, “You said yourself, that we are more leeches than vampires. And mortal literature leaves much to be desired.”

“It’s fiction, it’s called Twilight, ever heard of it? Kelly was huge on it…” It was the one thing that she and Nora shared.

Quinlan didn’t say anything, just looked at him with those colorless eyes.

“It’s a story about a girl moving to some mountain town where it rains all the time and she falls in love with a blood sucking guy who’s pretending to be in high school, it’s really bad.”

“You sound like you’ve read it.”

“She made me.”

“This vampire who sucked blood-“

“He glittered in the sun.”

The grimace on Quinlan’s face was priceless. Eph laughed, “I’m not comparing you to a monster from a book, I just want you to understand that…mortals…more specifically some mortal women like the idea of a man who is more than a man.”

The grimace didn’t change, there wasn’t some big reveal or astounded surprise coming from Quinlan’s still form. He simply glanced at Ephraim, “I know this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Like you’re kicking women off you every hour?”

“Gladiators, especially violent ones, had many admirers.”

That was all that was said about that.

But Eph noted the lack of details, were these admirers women, men, both? And did he respond to these admirers? Had Quinlan ever laid with a mortal?

Eph wasn’t sure why he wanted to know, but he did. The world was ending, his wife was a monster, his lover was dead and his son disappeared. Dutch would always belong to Fet. He wanted one thing for himself and one thing only.

And he couldn’t understand why, but he wanted, ever since he read that journal, he wanted Quinlan.

Now was not the time, standing behind the bar, bottle of hard liquor in his hand. Not while staring at Quinlan like he was some kind of dessert. Quinlan smirked, “You seem surprised, is it so hard to imagine?”

Nope. Not at all, picturing Quinlan in his gladiator garb, not Russel Crowe’s Gladiator but Brad Pitt in Alexander kind of garb. “The sun…how’d you stop-“

“Clay.” Quinlan said, taking a step forward with a predatory glint in his eyes, I coated myself in it.

Eph released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, “Right.”

He downed his glass, trying to imagine what exactly that looked like. He laughed derisively, “Hard to imagine, since you’re always wearing that hood.” He says, trying to sound normal. Trying to bring himself back from this obsession back to innocent scientific curiosity. Professional curiosity.

Oh god, but his eyes followed the pale blue veins down the side of Quinlan’s sharp cheekbones along the side of his defined jaw and down his throat where they disappeared into the high collar of his sweater.

Never, not once in his life had Ephraim wanted to run his fingers along the skin of a man, not in the way he wanted to now. Frustratingly enough, he was getting into his cups and it was getting harder to remember why he was resisting this at all. After all, with 2,000 years of experience under his belt, there was no way that Quinlan didn’t know what was happening here.

Quinlan looks at him, cool wintry eyes boring into his, intent and heat in his eyes. It should disgust him, to receive such a look from a beast. From a monster. But all it did was make all the blood in Eph’s body leave his head and begin to pool in his lower regions. He stared hard, and backed off, he had to, Quinlan can’t look at him like this.

His glass his empty, Quinlan fills it, “If there is one thing I can credit you for, Dr. Goodweather, it is your _active_ imagination.”

Imagination? He used to predict numbers; the spread of disease is something he could see in his mind like a formula flickering and changing with each second. But right now, numbers were muddled, and honestly, the last thing on his mind. Now his brain filled his mind with the strength in Quinlan’s shoulders, coated in drying clay under the hot roman sun, his thick, muscular thighs hidden beneath those fancy slacks, the corded muscles of his check and stomach. And inside of all of it, an irrational attraction, the deep seated need to snatch this before someone else found value in it. Before, Fet, Gus, before anyone else noticed that this hooded, surly figure they fought beside was…

Eph put his glass down, “I’m gonna go.” He says determinedly, “Because this conversation…it’s going a little out of my depth.” He dares to look at Quinlan. The bastard was fully turned in his direction, leaning one hip against the edge of the bar, his fingers sliding along the edge of the bottle, he tilted his head slightly to the side, brows straight, his pale eyes murky, that intent, that heat still simmering.

“Certainly doctor,” he says, “Have one for the road.”

Ephraim wasn’t used to holding back, his arrogance had given him nothing if not the determination to take what he wanted, and holding back wasn’t something he liked to do.

He snatched the bottle, Quinlan was frustratingly calm and collected, and that irritating twitch started at the corner of his mouth, a mouth unused to smiling, at least not since that damn journal was finished.

“Keep your mouth closed.” Ephraim says, his intent was plain, but it was going to be a challenge for obvious reasons.

The knowledge of what lurked behind his beautiful, sculpted mouth was too much to think about right now. But his defenses were down, and he was lonely, and he wanted so badly…so, so badly to be close to someone.

Quinlan scoffed, reached out and grabbed Eph by the back of his neck and hauled him forward. The bottle he’d been holding tipped and spilled over, Eph’s hands slipped and slid along the edge of the counter until the distance between him and Quinlan was gone. Pressed against Quinlan’s chest, Cool, pale fingers sliding along the back of his head, Quinlan’s mouth sliding against his. Ephraim couldn’t help it, he wanted to possess and taste, out of habit he delved his tongue between Quinlan’s lips. His mind told him he should feel guilty, doing this with a half-breed Strigoi, but his broken heart was still beating harder than it had before, his body pressed tightly against Quinlan, pounding with a need he’d been hiding. He didn’t want the Quinlan from that picture, smiling and ethereal, that man wasn’t real. He was only a sketch. What Ephraim wanted was closeness. Ephraim didn’t want to trouble himself with thoughts of later, of what this meant for both of them, or the potential of what it could be.

Just like he didn’t want to know what would happen if Quinlan kissed him back, if he pressed against Eph’s body, and let that...that thing push into his mouth. The idea of it was horrifying, but it didn’t make him stop or pull away. Nothing could have made him do that, not right now.

Eph just did what he could, he clung to him, ran his hands along Quinlan’s broad shoulders, over his cold, sharp ears. Quinlan’s hands lingered along his lower back, the other hand curling under his jaw sliding under his ear. There was no tongue behind his lips, Eph kept thinking, but he continued to push and touch, there was no plague here, no worms to fear. Not with him.

Ephraim pulled back to catch his breath, found himself face to face with Quinlan who caught his gaze and pulled him back to his embrace, back into that softness, that wet warmth of his kiss.

Ephraim pulled away, breathless, shocked at himself, helplessly aroused. “Christ,” he looked at Quinlan, who was just as breathless, though there was no flush under his skin. There was something in his eyes, that predatory glint, something that Eph was used to viewing people under, to have that gaze pinned to him was uncomfortable, and yet it filled him with the desire to obey, to follow, to listen to whatever was about to come out of Quinlan’s mouth, _whatever_ it was.

“Now,” Quinlan says, disengaging himself from Eph’s trembling form, “Dr. Goodweather,” he slides one clawed finger along Eph’s reddened bottom lip. “You were leaving.”

Eph almost fell over he jerked away so quickly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he stared around the room for a witness, for someone to have seen what just happened. His stomach burned with shame, he looked at Quinlan with panicked eyes, and Quinlan watched him with the clinical appreciation of a collector successfully pinning a rare butterfly.

“Fuck you!” Eph says, pointing at him helplessly, “you fucking…fucking…”he wiped his mouth again, his eyes wild, confused. He left, drunk and horny and angry all at once.

Infuriated at how cool and calm Quinlan had stood there, watching him fall to pieces. Nothing of that smiling image, that had seduced one of the greatest minds in history remained.


End file.
